Whole in the World
by kerithwyn
Summary: He was living, Peter thought balefully, in a Talking Heads song. This was not his beautiful house, Olivia was not his beautiful wife. "And you may ask yourself," he said aloud, "well...how did I get here?" The universe disdainfully refused to answer. [Gen, Peter/alt-Lincoln, not a love story]
1. Prologue

Fandom: Fringe

Relationships: Peter Bishop/Alternate Lincoln Lee, Alternate Olivia Dunham/Alternate Frank Stanton

Characters: Peter Bishop, Alternate Lincoln Lee, Alternate Olivia Dunham, Alternate Charlie Francis

Additional Tags: Not a Love Story

Summary: He was living, Peter thought balefully, in a Talking Heads song. This was not his beautiful house, Olivia was not his beautiful wife. "And you may ask yourself," he said aloud, "well...how did I get here?"

The universe disdainfully refused to answer.

Notes: Written for smallearthcat for Fandom Growth Exchange 2015. AU post- 4x09 "Enemy of My Enemy" when Peter learns the Redverse isn't all that bad; Olivia doesn't regain her memories of the previous timeline.

Thanks to Rainer for first early read and initial Peter-wrangling. Many thanks to Sam for beta and Elfin for support and a kick in the ending!

* * *

Peter's first reaction at being pulled back from oblivion: horror at finding himself in a place where no one knew him.

His second: determination to fix what was so obviously broken.

His third: nothing less than sheer gut-wrenching terror at the understanding that this wasn't his world, and the Fringe agent who eyed him so suspiciously wasn't his Olivia. He was the one out of place, and nothing about this world needed "fixing." Olivia clearly didn't. Walter needed the help, but Walter wasn't even willing to look at him. Astrid was the same as she always was, only more so. Broyles, precisely the same. And if Lincoln Lee wasn't exactly the same agent Peter met during the Dana Gray case, he was similar enough to have integrated himself into Fringe Division without significant difficulty.

For a brief period Peter found a measure of solace in the idea that his own world was still out there, somewhere, and he'd simply...emerged in the wrong place. Another alternate universe, slightly off-kilter from his own. His Olivia could still be out there. His Walter, his Lincoln, his life.

He clung to that belief until both Walter and Walternate examined the machine in depth and concluded that no, there was no way this device could have yanked him from yet another reality it had no connection to; and furthermore, they'd found no evidence of universes beyond their two (although Walter said it grudgingly, unwilling to eliminate the possibility entirely).

Which meant that he was trapped here. And that fact made him tired and confused, because why the hell would he have reappeared here if it wasn't where he was meant to be? It might've been more appropriate if he'd emerged from Reiden Lake in Walternate's universe. He'd been born there, so it would've made some kind of cosmic sense to find himself "reborn" in that world. But he'd appeared here, in this universe that he'd adopted for his own, so much like the world he remembered except for a few small details.

The small details that meant everything to him, but nothing to anyone else.

It was, Peter finally came to understand, a matter of _time_ rather than space. At the most basic level, his presence in what he was coming to think of as the previous timeline had been an anomaly. He'd been _meant_ to die as a child but survived through an improbable intercession. In the wake of his disappearance, the whole universe course-corrected to how things should have been all along. A world without Peter Bishop, the way it was meant to be.

It was enough to make a man vomit up his dinner and he did, holding on to the toilet bowl for dear life while his guts tried to evacuate the body that shouldn't even be here. But he _is_ here. And after Peter stopped heaving and cleaned himself up, he sat down in the big chair to think about that.

He _is_ here.

"I exist," Peter said softly into the empty house. It felt good, almost essential, to say it out loud. Because it followed there must be a reason for his reappearance. If he was never supposed to be here, there would be no rationale for his sudden arrival. But if—

Given that he had lived and therefore impacted the timeline, perhaps it was reasonable to assume that time had then reconfigured around him, leading up to...a giant course correction. Maybe he'd been meant to die (discorporate, whatever) in the machine, his destiny fulfilled by merging the two worlds. That meant he did have a purpose, even in retrospect. It was a tempting hypothesis—the bridge, after all, still stood as a connection and hope of peace between the two worlds. From what he'd been able to gather, those events came about slightly differently in this timeline...the universe again correcting for his being missing. But he'd needed to exist in the first place to begin that cycle.

It was circular, chicken-and-egg logic at best. But that didn't make it impossible. Peter had learned that throughout his time with Fringe Division.

So for the sake of his own sanity, he had to believe that there was a reason he came back. And if it wasn't to fix things—he wasn't so arrogant to believe an entire universe needed fixing just to put him back in place—then there might be no choice other than to accept where he was and go on from here.

He'd scream about that until his throat gave out, if the outburst wouldn't attract the attention of the FBI guard so-helpfully stationed outside.

He was living, Peter thought balefully, in a Talking Heads song. This was not his beautiful house, Olivia was not his beautiful wife. "And you may ask yourself," he said aloud, "well...how did I get here?"

The universe disdainfully refused to answer.


	2. Whole in the World

The epiphany struck as Secretary Bishop addressed the gathered Fringe teams. Peter looked down the long table at the row of mirrored faces: two Olivias, two Lincolns, two Phillips. One Walter was missing in person, but his presence was keenly felt. Two Astrids were listening in, keeping themselves in the loop.

The two worlds were finally working together to solve their mutual problem, with identical representatives from both sides. Peter, standing alone, had never found his unique status quite so clearly delineated.

What finally drove the point home was the realization that he didn't belong on either side, not really. He'd reappeared in a universe that forgot him, and for a while he'd assumed that he was meant to find a way back. But there was no way back, and it was completely up to him to write his own destiny.

So why had he been assuming he needed to stay in one world, when the other was just as viable an option?

There was nothing left for him in this world. Seeing Olivia every day only reminded Peter of what he'd lost, twice over. Not just the short time they'd had in the original timeline, but the extended life together he'd seen in the vision granted by the machine. It was more, he reflected with no solace in the idea whatsoever, than some people ever have: fifteen years of memories of being married to the woman he loves. It _happened,_ even if he was the only one in this—reality, timeline, whatever—who remembered it.

He might legitimately consider himself a widower, and figure out how to move on.

And as circumstances would dictate he had a unique opportunity to leave one life and start over in an entirely new world, and that appealed to the nomadic part of himself Peter thought he'd left behind years ago. It would even be poetic, in a way; he had, after all, been born on the world on the other side of the bridge.

Every moment spent here only emphasized what he'd lost. Olivia and Lincoln clearly had a thing brewing, even if both of them were being abysmally slow about taking it to the next step. Peter did—of course he did—spend a resentful couple of days thinking about how he might win Olivia back. He'd done it once, he could do it again, and Lincoln Lee be damned.

(That wasn't fair, either. He liked Lincoln for his own sake, and liked how he regarded Olivia as well.)

But his relationship with Olivia was based on experiences they no longer shared. It seemed...unfair, somehow, for Peter to use previously gained knowledge to manipulate Olivia, even if she would allow it. She was still the woman he loved, except in the ways she profoundly wasn't. It would be intrinsically foolish to expect events to play out the same way.

Peter's decision not to try to reconstruct what they'd had immediately resulted in a horrible gut-punched series of reactions. Like he was a coward, like he'd given up. Like he never deserved her love in the first place, if he was willing to let her go so easily. A lot, in fact, like he'd felt after Olivia returned from the other universe and he realized that her alternate had taken her place. But he hadn't given up, then. Now...now he needed to come to terms with the fact that Olivia really wasn't the same person he knew before. Close enough that he could love her, wanted to love her. But she wasn't the same.

The only way he could make any kind of peace with his decision was to think of this Olivia as yet another alternate and let his memories become a memorial to a woman who would only live, quite literally, as long as he remembered her.

After that realization, the rest was easy. The prospect of leaving Walter in the hands of Astrid and reluctant FBI babysitters filled him with guilt, but he'd already seen Walter beginning to come out of his shell. It was just too difficult to contemplate trying to rebuild that relationship again.

It was with less internal debate than he'd expected that Peter decided to make the jump for good. He said his goodbyes with as little drama as possible and walked through the bridge installation with a meager duffle bag full of possessions on his back. More than he'd had at some points in his life, heading off into far more uncertain territories.

After having spent over twenty years of his life in the universe he'd been kidnapped into, it was worth seeing what the world of his birth had to offer.

* * *

Quite a lot, as it turned out.

Over here he could begin get to know his—his father, who was nothing like he had believed, and his mother, who...

No question about it. She was stronger than the Elizabeth Bishop of his childhood, the one who'd worked so hard to make him part of the world and couldn't face it when he went off on his own. It might be traitorous, but Peter couldn't help comparing the mother he remembered to this Elizabeth, who weathered the loss of her son with dignity and grace.

These Bishops welcomed him back into their lives and invited him to make their home his own. Peter was too old to live with his parents, in any universe. His new paycheck more than covered a decent apartment, and frankly, he needed the time to himself to mourn the loss of his lover and wife, and the life he'd made.

His job would help with that. It hadn't been automatically assumed on either side that he'd join Fringe Division over here. The division was still a coveted assignment, full of prestige despite the dangers.

Peter drew on his old skills to talk his way in, despite Elizabeth's horrified protestations. Not for the prestige or the paycheck, but simply out of need to stay connected with the real issues troubling this world and the other. A long time ago in another universe, given the chance to turn his back on the craziness, he'd told Olivia that he wasn't going anywhere until he understood what was going on. Knowing what he did now, Peter recognized that he'd never find all those answers. No one could. But at least he'd be in a position to keep looking.

Colonel Broyles seemed unimpressed, pointing out the mortality statistics for Fringe agents. Peter emphasized his knowledge of the shapeshifters and Jones—already proven helpful during the search for said terrorist—and the simple fact of his survival in the alternate version of the division, even lacking this side's technology.

Broyles finally and begrudgingly agreed, leaving Peter to wonder if he'd opened a can of political worms in allowing the Secretary's miraculously returned son to work for the division. All the more reason to prove his worth, and quickly.

He did find it an agreeable change to have access to nearly unlimited resources, the full weight of the government and the citizenry behind Fringe Division's efforts, even if the reason for that support was so regretful. Although to everyone's surprise, the open link between the two worlds had provided a kind of equilibrium, the vortexes and anomalous events on this side slowing to a relatively manageable level. There were still Fringe events that needed to be dealt with, but the universe was no longer in imminent danger of disintegrating. "A sort of reverse osmosis, the other side's relative stability boosting our own," Dr. Fayette's successor pontificated.

At least the rest of the Fringe team made him feel welcome. Charlie Francis seemed pleased to have him aboard without any hesitation, so like the Charlie that Peter remembered working with during the early days of the other side's Fringe team. (The faster he started thinking of them as the "other side," the better.) This Charlie had encountered a similar kind of hybrid creature, and he still carried the results under his skin. "Not worms," he said, sounding like he'd said it thousand times. " _Arachnids._ " As if that was any better. But he was newly married and seemed happy despite the daily injections, a solid and utterly dependable presence on the team.

It was easy to contrast his methodical approach to the seemingly daredevil recklessness of this side's Olivia Dunham, although that first impression didn't survive long; Liv's intuition got results the more cautious members of the team might miss. Peter's feelings about her couldn't be anything but mixed, considering his memories of a subterfuge she didn't commit in this timeline, or at least not to the same extent. But he was determined to learn to appreciate her for who she was, rather than who she wasn't. Liv was engaged to Frank Stanton, her long-time and often-absentee boyfriend—by all accounts, a hell of a guy when he was around, and a genuine world-saving hero when he wasn't.

They made a perfect trio along with the pretty poster boy for heroism, team leader Captain Lee, a full-blown science nerd in a soldier's body. Lee was easier to deal with than Liv, because he was so outwardly different from his alternate. But he watched Liv with yearning eyes when she wasn't looking, confirming Peter's hypothesis about his double: where Olivia Dunham was, there went Lincoln Lee.

Peter spent the first week getting to know them, working with them on noncritical cases. It was déjà vu all over again, becoming the civilian consultant for this team, only he had to work even harder to keep up; Lee had a solid background in science and ably filled the need for scientific conjecture on the scene. What he lacked was the ability to make leaps of faith, wild assumptions that ignored logic to find the truth. That, Peter could do.

What he couldn't do on this team was fake his way through the day-to-day, the way he'd done on the other side. The downside of being part of a truly organized military operation was that people _noticed_ when you were lacking legitimate qualifications. Colonel Broyles gave him that week to settle in before handing over new orders, no argument permitted: official Fringe training, an expedited course through what used to be the FBI's training ground at Quantico, now reconfigured into Fringe Division's dedicated facility.

He wasn't quite transformed into a lean, mean, vortex-fighting machine by the time the training ended, but Peter did gain considerably more appreciation for the protocols that kept the agents on this side alive. Most critical was the crash course in this side's symbology learned by every schoolchild, like the blinking auburn diamond that meant compromised air quality.

And Fringe Division's unofficial motto: "Try Not to Die." That one he took to heart.

He'd also been subjected to the longest, most thorough physical of his life, concluding with a series of booster vaccinations against diseases still running rampant on this world: typhus, smallpox, a host of deadly flu variants. The final injection took him completely by surprise. "Last one, contraceptive implant," the doctor said, and cocked his head to Peter's startled look, mistaking his expression. "Standard procedure for Fringe agents. We suggest you leave it in place for at least a year while you...acclimate to the job," (Peter heard, "if you survive a year,") "but any clinic can remove it in moments."

That wasn't the cause of his surprise, but good to know anyway. "Sure," Peter said, and then out of sheer curiosity, "Can I get the documentation on that?"

"I'll send it to your datapad," the doctor said, and they were done.

Peter was welcomed back to New York by his new colleagues. Once he was settled, Lincoln offered some additional coursework: "Now I can tell you the stuff they don't teach."

Lincoln's version of a classroom looked an awful lot like a bar, complete with beer. Peter approved and listened, entertained, as Lincoln veered from one subject to another and eventually off-topic completely. He talked about growing up in this world as the threat of the vortexes and other anomalies became more prominent. "Just think of all you missed," Lincoln said wryly.

Peter took a long drink to hide his discomfort. Lincoln didn't seem to notice, eyeing him thoughtfully. "You know, your father and mine were acquaintances. If you'd grown up in this universe, we might've been friends."

"Play dates? Schoolyard buddies?" Peter suggested, his mouth quirking in amusement.

Captain Lee smirked. "Ha, yeah. You would've been of the 'appropriate' social strata. If I hadn't chosen Fringe Division as a career, they probably would've been talking arranged marriage."

Peter laughed and Lincoln laughed along with him, though Peter thought perhaps not for the same reason. "Don't get ahead of yourself. I don't kiss on the first date."

"I do," Lincoln said, and it was suddenly an entirely different discussion than the one Peter thought they were having.

He wasn't opposed to the notion, not at all. He'd immediately liked the other side's Lincoln Lee, from the first time they'd met on the Dana Gray case to the reset universe's version and his kindness in accepting Peter into the world despite everyone else's suspicions. The gift of the glasses—well, that had been nothing short of flirting, to be entirely honest, although they carried a double weight of meaning in the slender frame. Yes, it'd been a signal of his own interest, but also a kind of sanction of Lincoln's attraction for Olivia. If she wasn't _his_ Olivia, there was no reason she couldn't be Lincoln's. As much as Olivia was ever going to be anyone's.

And yeah, it got even more complicated when Peter realized that she was his Olivia after all, only rewritten...but without any way to restore her memories, it had to be enough to forfeit his interest to a guy he liked.

He liked this Lincoln, too. Peter appreciated his expertise dealing with Fringe events, his ability to switch from professional to casual without even a moment's notice, keeping the mood of the rest of his team light. He liked that Lincoln was, frankly, a complete science (and science-fiction) geek without being one whit embarrassed by the fact.

And they both loved an Olivia. That had to count for something, too.

Lincoln waved a casual hand at his silence, not seeming at all discomfited by Peter's lack of a reply. "Not to pressure you, or anything. I know you're still dealing with a lot of _stuff._ Just putting it out there."

Peter nodded, grateful for the understanding, and Lincoln went on to fill him in on past cases and the nuances of procedure that weren't found in any guidebook.

* * *

The thought lingered in the back of Peter's mind like a pleasant tingle of a possibility for a few weeks, an opportunity to contemplate while he settled into his new life.

It wasn't a foreign notion, but it'd also been quite a while since he'd had cause to consider the option. Early on, fooling around with guys had been another form of rebellion, something else that would distinguish him from his crazy father. Later, Walter's reminisces of drug-fueled sex parties and the occasional overly intimate mention of "Belly" put a definitive end to Peter's misapprehension.

Post-teenage rebellion and angst had been followed by a life of wandering and cons of one kind or another, and significant relationships of any kind had mostly been out of the question. Anything that might have tied him down to one place, at least. One-night stands and random hookups with interested parties were still on the menu, and Peter had indulged himself with women and men as struck his whim.

At his age he was probably supposed to have a line of serious relationships behind him, but there really wasn't anyone he thought about with anything more than vague fondness and occasional regret. Except Olivia, always and forever except Olivia.

So Lincoln, sure, Peter was willing to consider the possibility. At least on a casual level. Lincoln had made what he was offering perfectly clear. In the meantime, Lincoln wasn't pining for him by any means, or even waiting by his comm; he was a popular guy and didn't lack for company (male, female, or both at once) when he wanted it. Which was, Peter noted with amusement, fairly often. Fringe events might have slowed down on this side, but the frenetic energy with which the agents lived their lives hadn't.

Peter wasn't quite up to meeting that pace yet. His love for Olivia was still a very present-tense emotion and, Peter knew, always would be; there was no forgetting what they shared. But he also knew the immediacy of his grief would be dampened with time, a gaping wound transformed into a lingering ache. He could already feel it happening and welcomed the process. For a bad couple of days he'd tried to fight it, feeling ashamed and horrified at the thought of truly letting Olivia go for good. But she'd been rewritten and he wasn't getting her back, in this world or any other, and Peter wasn't willing to let his own life follow his lost timeline into oblivion.

He had more than enough to keep him busy otherwise, between familiarizing himself with Fringe protocols and learning this new world—all the variances in history and culture, and the basics like different faces on the legal tender.

He had a new city to learn, too. Peter had always liked New York, and the fact that the main Fringe Division building on this side was located here meant that he wasn't driving over the Boston streets he used to travel with Olivia. Maybe one day, he'd even learn to stop spelling "Manhatan" wrong. The streets were occasionally marred and diverted by an Ambered anomaly, but those flaws were counterbalanced by the fact that he could look up and see the Twin Towers and Gaudi's Grand Hotel, and airships passing overhead.

Maybe no one of this world would see it as a fair exchange, but Peter's perspective wasn't entirely of this world.

* * *

He didn't lack for ways to fill his time. Reading through old Fringe case files could easily have been an entire career. The threats this side faced tended to the dramatic, involving large-scale environmental menaces. But Peter still recognized a number of familiar cases that directly paralleled his experiences: the computer virus that could kill, an eerily similar encounter with a transgenic creature that infected Charlie Francis, the former soldiers who'd been turned into human bombs.

The list of specific events that hadn't happened here was even more interesting, including any case specifically involving Jones or ZFT. This world's Alfred Hoffman attempted to pursue his genocidal agenda, but any mention of the Bishop family had been redacted from the report. Demolition teams had never found a small bald child in abandoned tunnels under Boston.

Considering how much of Boston here was under Amber, Peter fervently hoped that child had never existed in this universe.

He learned about the apocalyptic cults that were trying to exacerbate Fringe events. He was introduced to the other divisions that supported the active science team, including a group of precognitives—some engineered by the same process that had been used on Agent Farnsworth, some who'd simply been born with the ability. One of the latter, a new recruit named Emily Mallum, looked at him with her dark, dark eyes and told him that she didn't foresee his imminent death.

It was the creepiest assurance he'd ever heard.

He accepted as many invitations to spend time with Walternate and Elizabeth as he felt he could reasonably handle. In a very real way he both was and was not their son: Schrödinger's child.

Peter was still feeling his way with them. Secretary Bishop wasn't the ruthless bastard he'd proven in the other timeline. This one had sent Olivia back home without injury after Liv's subterfuge on the other side, but then again, her Cortexiphan abilities hadn't been an issue here. But he was hard in other ways, politically savvy and driven. Elizabeth constantly tried to get him to slow down, to no avail. In this universe, at least, their marriage survived the loss of their son and they still clearly loved each other deeply.

They wanted to love him, but he wasn't ready to accept that emotional weight.

Peter had a number of self-assigned missions to distract him, too. Before he left the other side, Lincoln had asked him to keep digging for any evidence of David Robert Jones and the shapeshifters. He spent long hours working with computer simulations, trying to figure out what Jones was planning for the massive load of amphilicite he'd gathered.

He dreamed about Olivia, every night.

* * *

Even over here, people still died of natural causes. Word passed swiftly through the division of Agent Farnsworth's father's passing, followed by the usual social awkwardness in such situations...compounded by the fact that no one knew quite how to approach her.

While working with her briefly during the search to find Jones, Peter had registered how different she was from the Astrid he knew, and adjusted accordingly. Since learning more about the Looker program and her capabilities it bothered him, more than a little, how some of her co-workers seemed to treat her like a machine. Nothing in the literature suggested that her enhanced mental capabilities had in any way obliterated her emotions. If she had trouble expressing her feelings due to the underlying autism-like syndrome, that wasn't so different from any number of people Peter had met, before and during his work with Fringe Division on the other side. The way she'd reacted to the idea of his being from another timeline, and her frustration at missing a clue toward finding Jones, were ample evidence that she felt and hurt like everyone else.

Most of the local division turned out the morning of the funeral, since even those who found dealing with Astrid personally awkward recognized her contributions to the team. Astrid was still and silent throughout the ceremony, listening to Reverend Stewart's words with little reaction. Afterward Peter approached, intending to offer the usual meaningless condolences, and was surprised when Astrid looked him nearly in the eye.

"Is hers alive? The other Astrid's father?"

Even after three years Peter felt like he barely knew anything about Astrid Farnsworth, either version, but at least he could answer this. "He is, or was when I left," he answered solemnly, hoping that this wasn't one of those cases where events on both sides occurred in parallel. "He's a minister, like yours."

She nodded, her eyes darting back and forth over his face. "And did he—" she stopped abruptly. "That is an inappropriate question. Thank you, Peter Bishop."

"Wha—" he started, but others were waiting their turn and she didn't seem inclined to continue the conversation.

Later that day, Peter wasn't entirely surprised to hear that Agent Farnsworth had gone AWOL, using her security clearance to pass through the bridge to the other universe. Peter learned that Liv had gone over to retrieve her only after the fact, and was simultaneously irritated and relieved that no one had asked him to take the job. He wasn't ready to see the other side again, still letting the texture of this world sink into his bones to hold him here.

* * *

Charlie cornered him one day over lunch in the employee cafeteria. In retrospect, Peter saw the wisdom of his choosing a populated area.

"Hey, Peter."

"Hey," Peter replied, companionably enough. By this point he probably knew this Charlie Francis as well as if not better than he'd known the Charlie on the other side; working together in the pressure-cooker environment over here forged quick camaraderie. Still, Charlie remained relatively close-mouthed by nature, and as far as Peter knew Lincoln and Liv were the only ones he confided in.

Charlie's expression was congenial as he waved Peter over to a seat near one of the high windows. They ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Peter was still working his way through all the weird potato chip variations they had over here; he was fond of the tikka masala, less so of the seafood flavors.

His lunch companion finally cleared his throat and looked over. "Been wondering. Why'd you sign up for Fringe Division over here?"

Peter shrugged, pretty sure he'd stepped into some kind of ambush. "Had to do something."

"That's the thing, though, you didn't." Charlie fixed him with a steady gaze. "Your father's—okay, I know it's still weird thinking of him as your dad, but go with it. Your dad's the Secretary of Defense, arguably the most important public official outside of the president, and a lot of people would say there's no argument. And knowing him—yes or no, you arrived over here and found there were still accounts and bonds in your name, right?"

"Yeah," Peter said after a moment, and didn't bother telling Charlie that he hadn't touched a penny of it. Yet. But the money was just sitting there, honestly and legally his. He never had to work another day in his life, if he didn't want to. Part of it was pride, not wanting to be beholden to anyone, even his own parents. Part of it...

...part of it was repudiation of the man he'd once been, the guy who would have taken the money and vanished, getting into all kinds of trouble in the lowest shitholes he could find anywhere on the globe.

"Takes a special kind of crazy to sign up for this," Charlie was saying. "Trust me, I know. When they were first setting up the division ten years ago, they had all us FBI guys who were willing to make the jump go through all kinds of tests, like we were rookies all over again. A lot of guys opted out and switched over to a police precinct, or took early retirement instead." Charlie looked briefly angry. "We lost a lot of good people over that. Anyway, point is— you really have to want to work for Fringe Division. Whatever your reason, Peter, it's got to be more than just running away from another universe."

"Have I given you any indication," Peter said, genuinely irritated now, "that I haven't committed to this world?"

"Nope." Charlie grinned at him. "Just poking to see what makes you tick. You're a puzzle box, Bishop, and I don't really care about your secrets. I just care that you don't get me and my partners killed."

"I solemnly swear to do my best," Peter told him, meaning it.

* * *

There was a discernible pattern to what happened the evening (or afternoon, or morning) after a Fringe event. Adrenaline had a lot to do with it, the excitement of having beaten death for another day. Even (maybe especially) when lives were lost, the Fringe team gathered in one of the local bars post-event, no matter the hour, straggling in by ones and twos as they cleared their official obligations and went off duty. The festivities included the active response team, of course, joined by the support staff and the researchers and techs who kept them all alive. The gathering usually turned into a party with greater or lesser levels of raucousness depending on the severity of the incident, the barkeeps calling in extra staff to keep up with the demand for food and booze and the neighboring establishments pitching in to help as well.

The teams earned their celebrations and no one begrudged them the opportunity to blow off steam, and celebrate life. There was a lot of hugging, which turned into a lot of groping as the hours wore on, people heading off in pairs (or trios) to continue their parties elsewhere with far less clothing.

The compulsory implant, Peter thought wryly, suddenly made a lot more sense.

Today's event hadn't been particularly world-shaking, just a localized gravity inversion, but Fringe agents took any excuse to celebrate. Peter wasn't immune to the vibe, but he was mostly content to watch the revelry from a booth in the back. Liv had left hours ago, not interested in the free-flowing alcohol, to go home to Frank; Charlie hung out for a couple of beers and a shot or two with Peter before taking a cab home to his wife.

Still, Peter was surprised—awareness dulled by the after-effects of the day's events and the drinks—when Lincoln slid into the booth across from him, mostly because he would have expected Lincoln to already have collected a partner for the evening and gone. A tiny part of his brain, perpetually aloof and amused, wondered why it had taken so long for the man to make his follow-up move.

But Lincoln just saluted Peter with his unmarked bottle. "Bartender's own stock," Lincoln noted to his glance, and passed it over for Peter to taste.

He did, surprised to taste a hard cider rather than the ubiquitous beer, and registering the high level of sweetness characteristic to most of the fermented brews on this side. He also tasted Lincoln on the rim and Peter was completely unprepared for the surge of desire that hit him without warning. It wasn't even focused toward Lincoln, or not specifically; more like his libido waking up, reminding him what it felt like to _want_.

Peter closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, feeling the flush curl through him. When he opened his eyes he found Lincoln watching him, amused. The stubble on his face was prominent this many hours from his razor. Peter liked it, he decided, as if he had any say in the matter. The difference kept him from thinking about the other side's Lincoln and all the associations connected with him.

"Not bad, right?" Lincoln said, snatching back the bottle from Peter's unresisting fingers and taking his own swallow. "You did good today, Peter. You're allowed to celebrate a little."

He breathed in and out, slowly, the heat pooling in his stomach and lower down a counterpoint to the casualness of their conversation. "You don't consider a couple of drinks an adequate celebration?"

Lincoln shrugged. "Your call. Just saying, people keep asking me if you're available, since you haven't made yourself approachable. A lot of offers on the table if you want to take 'em."

"Yours, too?" Peter found himself saying before he could convince himself not to.

He was pleased to see that at least Lincoln swallowed hard before answering. "Yes. Mine too."

Peter nodded, his fingers tapping randomly at the tabletop without his permission. If they were playing poker, he'd already have lost his shirt to the tell.

He might lose his shirt anyway, unless he put a definitive halt on the proceedings. "I'm flattered by the attention—tell them that. I'm just not sure I'm ready." His body protested, wanting to make a liar of him.

"Like I said, your call," Lincoln said, and Peter appreciated that he managed not to sound too disappointed. "You up for some company of the purely platonic kind?"

Peter wasn't really sure he was, but he nodded again anyway, and Lincoln waved a few people over to their booth. The newcomers were tentative with him at first, treading carefully, and Peter berated himself for having remained detached. He risked his life with these people every time there was an event, he depended on them and they on him. It was the very least he could do to pretend to sociability, which transformed into the real thing before too long.

They were good people, and he had no reason to keep himself isolated. But even if he'd wanted to remain separate, that would have been impossible in the long run. His team, he had discovered, was always the center of attention.

People respected Charlie. He had a storied history as the FBI veteran, the old guy. That last, of course, held a lot of irony—Charlie wasn't the oldest agent in the division by a fair margin—but everyone looked to him for his experience and advice.

People liked Liv but feared her a little, which was understandable. She was friendlier than his— than Olivia on the other side, but still retained some reserve, some distance, except with Charlie and Lincoln. That, Peter recognized. She hadn't had the dire experiences of the other Olivia. Still, that native wariness remained, a way of keeping herself protected.

But people loved Lincoln. Part of it was the way he led his team: always the first into a situation, never putting someone in danger he wasn't willing to risk himself. His lightness in the most dire of situations. His willingness to admit when he didn't have an answer, and his readiness to listen to other people's possible solutions.

Most appealing of all, Lincoln was a gregarious dork. People swarmed around him, eager to share in his laughter and warmth. He got ridiculously excited about little geeky things, whether science fiction or science fact, and his enthusiasm was contagious.

The gathering started to break up, and Lincoln still hadn't indicated that he was going to take anyone up on the many, many offers of company he'd received.

Peter waved vaguely toward the thinning crowd. "Don't feel compelled to deprive yourself."

"I don't feel deprived," Lincoln said, smiling, and sat with Peter until the party had mostly dissipated.

He was starting to think about leaving when Lincoln spoke up again. "Listen, I have something to confess."

It was a startling statement, particularly coming from a guy who Peter had already learned couldn't help spilling his business (and everyone else's) with little sense of discretion. He eyed Lincoln with some trepidation but Lincoln was smiling, a little sheepishly.

"The thing is, I kinda do remember you. From when we were kids."

It was a cold shock, and Lincoln held up a hand before Peter could formulate a response. "I know you don't remember, that's in your file."

He really didn't. His childhood was a blur, with reliable memories only picking up from when he was about nine or ten years old. In the early days of Fringe Division, before he knew the truth, Peter had passed off Walter's comments about his being sick as a child, about small incidents that he didn't recall, as the man's brain-addled confusion. The other side's Walter and Elizabeth had convinced Peter that it was his world so thoroughly that he'd blocked out any conflicting memories. Through all the ordeals since, he'd never gotten them back.

"You've been reading my file?" he asked, pure deflection.

"I read everybody's file. But anyway, it's not a lot, just a vague sense of trading comics, running around on the playground, you know. Kid stuff." Lincoln bit at his lip. "And then your parents wouldn't let you out to play anymore, when you got sick. When you disappeared, the news was all over the school, but no one knew anything. I had nightmares for a while, a lot of kids did. And eventually we all just kind of...forgot." He glanced into Peter's face, looking troubled. "That's pretty shitty, I know. I guess the whole idea that a kid could just vanish and never be seen again was too scary to think about."

"You were just a kid," Peter said automatically, and then, "I don't remember any of that. I never thought anyone else would either, outside of Walter and Elizabeth."

"It was a big deal here," Lincoln said, and Peter recalled Liv saying much the same thing in the other timeline. "If your dad wasn't, well, who he is, you probably would've been mobbed for interviews. I...kind of told people at work to back off."

It was a presumption, but a well-meant one. Peter nodded, accepting the interference as it was intended. "So you weren't kidding before. We really would have been friends."

"Should old acquaintance _literally_ be forgot," Lincoln said. "But never too late to renew it, right? I was going to look through my old storage boxes, see if I can find anything from back then." He pried himself out of his seat. "Anyway. Go home, see you tomorrow. Whenever that is."

* * *

There was a tomorrow, and even a next day, and through it all Peter kept thinking about one astonishing thing, over and over again:

People on this side _knew_ him.

He'd been erased entirely, as far as the other universe was concerned; he had, in this timeline, existed over there just long enough to pass through the portal as a sick kid and drown in Reiden Lake. But over here he'd been an actual living, breathing presence in the world for seven years.

Seven years could be an eternity. Elizabeth had boxes full of photos attesting to his existence. There were enough digital articles about his disappearance to fill whole rooms, if anyone still had a working printer and actual paper. Lincoln remembered him, and Peter would bet that a handful of now grown-up kids from the same class did too. Neighbors and doctors and teachers and it made Peter dizzy, almost, to realize just how many people on this side potentially had memories of him as a child.

Such a contrast to his other life, where he'd run as far and fast as he could from anything familiar, deliberately erasing his own past over and over through a series of false identities and false histories. He might not remember his childhood here, but other people did, and their memories could be an anchor to this world. If he let them be.

If he was willing to let them be.

* * *

With Frank so often out of town, Liv was eager to find ways to fill her time. She was so different than Olivia, who was so self-contained, content to spend her free time alone. Liv preferred to have people around, keeping herself busy with constant movement.

Lincoln confided that Liv and Frank had gone through a rough patch not long ago, nearly split up entirely. Lincoln was, Peter had already learned, by far the best source of division gossip. Liv spent a couple of miserable weeks crying on Lincoln's shoulder before she and Frank resolved their issues and reaffirmed the engagement.

Implicit in the story was the undeniable subtext that Lincoln had been hoping Liv would turn to him instead, but Lincoln didn't mention it outright and Peter wasn't cruel enough to poke at the obvious sore spot there.

He'd stopped seeing Olivia in Liv's face, as strange as that sounded. They were different enough in mannerisms and style that it had become easy to see her as her own person, not a doppelganger of the woman he loved. The divergences in their histories made all the difference.

There'd been no Cortexiphan trials on this side, and Marilyn had never remarried, forestalling the abusive stepfather. Here, Marilyn's cancer had been detected early and treated with an outpatient procedure. There—in both timelines—Olivia lost her mother to a slow, painful death.

The universes seemed to demand balance. Here, Dunham-stubborn, Rachel had been convinced she could beat the odds of the viral propagated eclampsia that was reaching epidemic proportions in the population. She hadn't, and her child died with her. There—in both "theres"—Rachel lived in Chicago with her (in Peter's opinion, undeserving) husband Greg and one child in the timeline Peter had lost, two in the one he'd left.

Olivia, the Olivia he'd known, never talked much about losing her mother. This Olivia carried her sister's death like a long-healed scar: the pain evident, but no longer immediate.

But comparisons were useless and worse, counterproductive. Liv was a colleague and teammate and so when she invited him out for a weekend excursion when Charlie and Lincoln were unavailable, Peter hesitated only briefly before he accepted.

It turned out not to be like spending time with Olivia at all. But she did manage to catch him off guard, same as Olivia used to.

"So...I get the feeling there's something you haven't said." Liv studied him for a moment before saying, "You look at me sometimes like...I don't know. Like you're angry at me for something. It feels personal." She cocked her head and added, "You've eased up the last couple of weeks, though."

Olivia Dunham was far too perceptive, in any universe. Peter took a moment to moderate his own reaction before answering, as truthfully as he could. "You know I have memories of another timeline. Things between the two universes went a little differently there. You..." he stopped, amending himself mid-stream. "A different version of you made other choices that— look, there's no point in rehashing things that didn't happen."

She watched him, hazel eyes narrowing. "I did something. Hurt you."

Peter had no intention of unearthing that particular piece of his past, one of the few memories he'd be glad to see lost entirely. "I've been trying not to project that onto you. You didn't do anything."

"Did enough, as far as the other side's concerned," she shot back tartly. "Their Walter doesn't want to talk to me, Astrid looks downcast when I'm around. I can't apologize for trying to save my world, and I especially won't apologize for whatever some...other version of me did in another timeline." She stopped and waved her hands, like she was trying to clear the air of her own frustration. "And I get that you had a thing with some version of the other Olivia too, and you lost that. So seeing me can't be easy for you, but we've got to figure out how to work together without either of us feeling that we can't trust each other. That gets people killed."

"I agree. So...I'm Peter Bishop. New to the division and, uh, the area." He stuck out his hand and Liv shook it, bemused. "I hear there's a pretty good street fair in the vicinity...?"

"Better idea. They revamped all the rides at Coney Island, fastest and steepest coasters on the eastern seaboard. You're not a puker, are you?" she said, the sparkle in her eye a challenge. Peter allowed that no, on the whole he was not, and bring it on, sweetheart.

The diminutive fell out of his mouth before he could stop it and Peter braced himself for the inevitable smackdown. But Liv just lifted an eyebrow at him and said, "We'll see if you're that cocky after the Hellhole. That one did Charlie in."

Peter held onto his dignity, even after a fairway dog and a funnel cake. Olivia admitted that he might, just might, be tougher than he looked, and therefore an acceptable companion for further excursions. "White-water rafting. Or base jumping," she suggested, and Peter began to see why Lincoln and Charlie had made their excuses. Fair rides were one thing; deliberately inviting the risk of bodily harm was another. But the gleam in her eye also suggested she was joking. Mostly.

It'd been a long time since Peter'd spent time with someone with that sense of...play. (Aside from Walter's more-than-slightly twisted manifestations.) Liv was determined to enjoy the life she was living despite the world she lived in, and Peter knew he was privileged to see this side of her.

But that was as far as it went, as far as it would ever go. As beautiful and brave and strong as she was, she would never be his Olivia.

* * *

There was absolutely no specific reason or particular catalyst for the next step. Lincoln didn't save his life on the next case, and Peter didn't feel any notable twinge of jealousy when Lincoln went home with someone else after the next shindig.

No catalyst except maybe for a sense of inevitability that Peter no longer had the strength or wish to fight. If he was gonna lose his cherry in this universe, he thought with an almost-crazed sense of hilarity, better it was with someone he trusted. There was probably also something a shrink would have a field day with lurking in the Lincoln-to other Lincoln-to Olivia continuum, but Peter didn't feel the need to examine that configuration too closely.

He caught Lincoln in one of the quiet hallways after work, not on an event day, just to be perverse about it. "Got plans for tonight?"

"There's a physics lecture at the university," Lincoln answered absently, before turning to Peter with a self-deprecating roll of his eyes. "Go on, mock. Charlie and Liv already let me have it."

"I could offer an alternative suggestion," Peter said, and very gently pushed Lincoln against the nearest wall. He gave Lincoln time for a startled breath, a moment to protest if he wanted it, before leaning in. But Lincoln's mouth opened eagerly under his and he kissed Peter back enthusiastically, allowing Peter to set the pace and also letting him know in no uncertain terms that he was in full accord with Peter's proposal.

It'd been a whim, an experiment more or less, to see if he and Lincoln had the right chemistry for anything further. It wasn't a question anymore. Peter let the kiss end, pulling back with a smile. "Unless you'd rather hear that lecture..."

" _Fuck_ the lecture," Lincoln blurted, and then laughed. "Yeah, no, I'm over it. But I thought you didn't kiss on the first date."

"Not a 'date,'" Peter snapped back too harshly before he caught himself. If anyone knew the score here, it was Lincoln. "...sorry. Do over?"

"No strings," Lincoln murmured, and that was exactly the push Peter needed to decide.

* * *

But an hour later, sitting on the couch in Lincoln's living room, nothing was that easy.

He should go. He should get up and leave before the aura of grief and anger he was radiating stank up Lincoln's apartment, especially since it wasn't aimed at the apartment's owner.

Things had started well enough, both of them shedding their clothing nearly as soon as they'd gotten through the door. Peter grinned at Lincoln's revealed tattoos: the Fringe Division one on his shoulder blade and the kanji on the small of his back.

He'd thought about getting his mouth on them but it turned out Lincoln had other, very specific plans. In short order they were both naked and Lincoln had dropped to his knees.

But despite the chemistry, the feel of Lincoln's mouth against him just reminded Peter that he wasn't with _her._ Even if Lincoln was willing to be used as a substitute, even if this was just friendly sex with absolutely no significance, Peter still felt like he was committing some kind of betrayal. To his own memories, if no one else. He'd grabbed his clothes and backed out of the bedroom, shaking, gritting his teeth against the bile in his throat.

After a tactful interval Lincoln emerged from the bedroom, dressed in sweats and a wrinkled t-shirt obviously fished out of the nearest laundry basket. He swerved over to the kitchen and when he came over, he was holding two bottles.

Peter took his on autopilot and was surprised to feel it cool, but not overly cold—he hadn't heard the fridge door open. Lincoln just nodded to his raised eyebrow. "Yeah, I built a special cooler just to prove to Charlie that he didn't have to drink his beer ice cold for it to taste good. If we're all drinking decent stuff, which I'd rather if I have a choice about it. And it's my house, so I do." Lincoln paused, like he hadn't expected to be delivering a treatise on beer temperature. "Anyway. Geek tinkering proved useful."

"Very useful," Peter muttered, just to say something.

Lincoln sat down on the couch, not infringing on Peter's personal space but not avoiding him, either. He picked up the remote, pushing a button for one of the preset stations—the one with the 24-hour _Star Trek_ reruns. This picture came up on the "Mirror, Mirror" episode, of course, because that was how the universe worked. Both universes.

"Y'know, Peter," Lincoln offered casually, after a couple minutes spent appreciating Spock in a goatee, "I'm not just your hot and awesomely competent team leader, I'm also your friend. If you'll let me be."

It was kindly meant, and Lincoln even managed not to sound too sympathetic about the whole thing, which would have raised all of Peter's defenses.

"I should go," he said, mostly because it felt like something he should say.

"Yeah, you could. Or we could order up dinner, 'cause we kind of skipped that, and watch something stupid." Lincoln paused, waving at the screen. "This doesn't qualify. _This_ is art."

He was too agitated to chance his temper on public transportation, and calling for a cab seemed like too much effort. Peter nodded assent, not wanting to be responsible for any more decisions tonight, and Lincoln took care of everything: calling up one of the delivery places in the area, flipping through channels until he found an old black and white comedy. The nynuck-nynuck's sounded familiar, at least until Peter looked more closely and saw at least one of the Stooges was different from those he remembered.

The food arrived so quickly that Peter suspected magic, or at least bribery. Lincoln unpacked right on the low table in front of the couch, heedless of drips or leaks. "I figured comfort food was in order. Macaroni and cheese—best in the city—and fried chicken. Which isn't the best ever, but you have to go down south for that. And look, vegetables!" Lincoln looked pleased with himself, holding up a clear container filled with a dark green substance. "Collard greens. So that's almost healthy."

"Cooked with pork fat?" Peter asked, amused despite himself.

"Only acceptable method," Lincoln grinned, and handed over a fork.

It was easier than it should have been to kick back and let everything go, sinking into the couch and filling his belly with carbs and fat and his head with ridiculous pratfalls.

"Believe it or not," Lincoln finally murmured, seemingly out of the blue, "half my evenings end up like this."

He didn't say anything else, and Peter was grateful for his restraint. It could've been a line, an exaggeration meant to comfort, but Peter had no reason to believe the statement was anything but the truth. Accepting it as given meant he could forgo any lingering sense of embarrassment.

The laughs were wearing thin and dinner was long digested by the time Lincoln clapped a hand on his shoulder and stood. "Come to bed, Peter. Just to sleep. Promise I won't grope you."

"Better not. I bite."

Lincoln paused at the doorway to the bedroom. "...don't tempt me."

Peter laughed and followed him. He was surprised to find himself drifting off sooner than he'd expected, Lincoln a lulling warmth at his side.

* * *

Peter woke early in the morning, before the alarm. He blinked at the ceiling once or twice before he remembered where he was, and what had happened yesterday...and miraculously, had no need to feel humiliated or distressed about it.

He rolled out of bed, pulled on yesterday's crumpled jeans, and said to Lincoln's unmoving form, "See you at work."

"mmmmph," Lincoln grumbled into his pillow, rolling over to sprawl across what had been Peter's half of the bed.

"Not a morning person. Noted," Peter said softly, and let himself out.

He went home to shower and change. When he picked up his jacket again, a small square fell from its pocket to the ground. Picking it up, he saw it was an old Polaroid, faded with time: two boys sitting on a stoop, heads bent over a pile of comic books. One had dark hair, the other blond. The dark-haired one, a little larger—and Peter noted ruefully, on the chunky side—was leaning over to point at something in the book in the other boy's hands.

He stared at it for a couple of minutes, willing himself to remember, but nothing came. There were good reasons, he knew, for the mental block. As a kid, after so many months of being told that his memories were wrong, he'd finally—understandably—given in and allowed his new reality to overwrite everything he'd known before.

It wasn't a matter for anger any longer, or even regret. But for the sake of the boys in this picture, Peter wished he could remember.

* * *

Lincoln had taken some mandatory leave time and gone to visit family when the team got a call about a downed aircraft in Vermont. What started as a routine call turned into something else entirely.

Fringe Division was called out as a first responder as a precaution, to take readings and make sure that nothing about the crash posed an unusual hazard to the investigatory crews. Peter went along on the case as a probationary agent, although in the field that kind of distinction got lost fast. The team traced the cause of the crash to an area of generalized power loss and gathered eyewitness accounts of other oddities. Specialized instruments detected a surge in electromagnetic forces, but the surge seemed to be passing with distance from the event. All seemed normal until Charlie, Liv, and Peter drove into the nearby town of Westfield.

Things got strange, fast. All their comms went down. The town appeared deserted, at least until Charlie was attacked by a crazed, disfigured resident who Liv coolly put down with a single shot. But it wasn't until they tried to drive out of town to bring in other agents that they discovered the depths of the weirdness: The road looped back on itself like a Möbius strip and it became evident that they were trapped, unable to leave.

With no other choice the team headed back into town and spotted a woman trudging along the road, looking frightened. She was startled by the car, then wary, and then grateful when they identified themselves as Fringe agents. "Oh, thank God, we were hoping you'd show up. But—you're trapped here too now, aren't you?"

Her name was Anne Collins, and three nights ago, her town had gone crazy. "I got a frantic call from Jean Hayes, she was so scared, practically incoherent. I tried calling the sheriff, but the phones were down, so I went over. When I got there, she kept talking about her husband, how he was missing, all his stuff was gone from the house! Thing is, she's never been married." Anne sighed, rubbing her hand over her eyes. "She died just after that. I tried to reach her brother Cliff, he moved to Philly with his wife and daughter last year, but no one could call out. And then it started happening all over Westfield. Those who weren't affected gathered at the high school, but someone had to go for help. When I tried to walk over to the next town..." She made a circle with her finger. "Like you saw."

The three agents looked at each other with concern. "Well, this is just a whole new level of bizarre," Charlie drawled. "Mz. Collins, you said other people have been affected?"

Charlie and Liv conducted the interview while Peter listened with a growing sense of trepidation...and familiarity. People experiencing memories from someone else's life. Sickness, violence, ugly deaths.

Peter cursed under his breath. "Guys, that sounds a lot like bleed-through effect. The other universe impinging on this one." He'd seen it for the first time nearly two years ago, that unfortunate guy in the office building who suddenly found himself with an extra pair of arms and legs.

Charlie and Liv looked at each other and nodded. "Think this has something to do with Jones?"

"I'd bet on it," Peter said grimly. "He wasn't collecting the amphilicite for nothing."

"Swell. How do we stop it?" Charlie asked, getting right to the heart of the matter as usual.

"No idea. Yet."

"Okay," Liv said, her tone decisive even if her body language said she was anything but. "Let's meet up with the other survivors, see if any of them know anything useful."

The car had died in the meantime, probably from continuing electromagnetic flux. They were making their way down the street, Charlie quizzing Anne about the progression of the town's troubles, when Liv stumbled and nearly fell. Peter caught her elbow. "Hey, you all right?"

She frowned down at her hands. "Yeah. It's just— my arm won't stop shaking. That's all."

Concerned, Peter reached for her wrist, automatically feeling for her pulse, but she waved him off.

"No, I'm okay. Just a little bit dizzy."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, itz firrr—" she slurred and then stopped, looking startled. Before he could shout for Charlie she spoke, her words clear again. "Peter, I don't know how to explain it, but that felt like there was somebody else in my head."

"The other Olivia?" he said softly, hoping it wasn't true, and Liv gave him a sharp look.

"You mean, because she's investigating the same thing in the same place on her side? Shit, I guess that's possible. At least you and Charlie don't have that to worry about." She took a gulping breath. "Let's keep moving."

Liv took a couple of steps, then let out a sharp laugh devoid of any humor. "I'm not worried about merging with her. She'd die rather than share space with me again."

The comment was unfunny on any number of levels, but by then they'd reached the school and were immediately swarmed by the other survivors.

Olivia raised her voice, talking over the civilians' babble with a confident tone. "Look, I understand that you have questions, but all I can tell you at the moment is that help will come. In the meantime we need to work together, so we can find out what's going on here and how to get out."

As usual when Liv took charge, Peter had an attack of double vision. When they were on a case, there were moments it was hard to tell the Olivias apart. That was more disconcerting than usual in this particular circumstance.

A man in coveralls shook his head grimly at Anne. "It's still happening. Teresa went off this morning. I locked her in one of the classrooms."

"Let's talk to her," Peter said on impulse. "Maybe she can give us another perspective."

Teresa Hall seemed like a perfectly normal young woman...at least until her mouth opened to display a second row of teeth. But she sounded rational enough. "You're the man from the government. You're here about the paper mill. It's causing pollution here, isn't it?"

"Paper—" Charlie said, startled, and then recovered. "Uh, no ma'am."

"Paper mill," Liv said softly to Peter, marveling, while Charlie employed his most authoritatively comforting voice. "They all shut down over twenty years ago."

"But there are still some working on the other side." Peter let out a breath. "This is bad, Liv."

"Got that," she said dryly. "Guess it doesn't help to tell you my head's pounding like a bastard, too. And I don't usually get headaches."

Teresa kept insisting that her husband had been dead for years, but Anne explained that he was alive and well. He'd gone scavenging for supplies, unable to bear to his wife's descent into madness or worse.

Charlie wrapped up the interview and stepped away to talk. "Looks like your hypothesis is on the money. So how do we stop this thing?"

"Not sure we can," Peter said, thinking furiously. "Can't get out, it's a bubble of overlapping space."

"Not good enough, fill-in science guy." Charlie gave him a pointed look. "I'm gonna see to the rest of the civilians, make sure they're keeping cool. Work on it."

"No pressure," Peter grumbled as Charlie walked away.

Liv smirked. "He's got faith in you. Sometimes distraction helps. Talk to me while your brain processes. What's she like?"

Peter glanced over at her. "Pardon me?"

Liv shrugged. "The other Olivia. I'm just curious."

Not the topic he would have chosen, but given the circumstances, he supposed he might as well answer the question. "She's, uh— she's driven. She's very, very stubborn. She doesn't like to lose. But she sees the best in people, even when they don't see it themselves. When she first found me, I was in Baghdad trying to run a scam on these two Iranian businessmen."

Liv grinned. "I didn't picture you as the scamming type."

Peter shrugged. "That's what made me so good at it. Anyway, it was all supposed to be temporary. She told me I just had to babysit Walter while he was working on a case for the FBI, and then after it was done, I could leave, go back to my own life—despite, of course, how gorgeous she is."

Liv smiled, pleased. "Well, you've got good taste."

The confession came spilling out, maybe prompted by the specter of impending catastrophe. "She gave me something that I hadn't had since—really since my mom died, over there. She gave me...a place to call home. A place I'd want to call home."

Liv tilted her head at him. "I hope— Peter, I hope one day you feel that this world is a place like that. Assuming we all have another day."

But they wouldn't, not unless he started concentrating on the problem at hand. He peered closely at her. "You haven't had any more dizzy spells or weird feelings, have you?"

"This whole town gives me a weird feeling. But no, nothing, even my headache's gone. That's good, right?"

"Yeah, definitely. Just wish I knew why." He'd lay a bet it had something to do with Olivia on the other side, and when this case was over he'd immediately put in a request for a debrief with their team. If any of them were left to file a report.

There was a commotion from outside and Anne poked her head around the doorway. "Agents, something's happening outside. Everyone's gone up to the roof to see."

On the school's roof civilians were shouting, pointing toward the horizon. In the distance buildings were turning wavery, going dim and then fading out into nothingness. A quick glance around confirmed that the effect was repeating in every direction, coming closer in a tightening circle.

"Well, that ain't good," Charlie drawled. He glanced over at Liv. "And I didn't even update my will."

"Mona would just spend it all anyway," Liv replied absently, the exchange sounding to Peter like a longstanding joke. "Peter, if you've got a hat, we need a rabbit."

Peter watched the oncoming wave of deconstruction for another moment, and then an inspiration hit him. "We need—do we know where all this started?"

Liv and Charlie glanced each other, then nodded. "We've got a pretty good timeline of events established—"

"Great. I need a map," Peter snapped, and headed back down the stairs.

The school library contained a thankfully up-to-date town map. Peter went at it with a marker, working as Liv and Charlie delineated the sequence of events. "I'm looking for the epicenter, the eye of the storm. If it's the same in both universes, and that's a pretty big 'if,' the opposing forces should cancel themselves out there."

Charlie huffed a laugh. "Sure, of course. Sounds like something Lincoln would say. I'll take your word for it. You find the center, I'll get people ready to move."

Peter watched him go before bending to the map again. "I did say 'if,' right?"

Liv shrugged. "Gotta do something. Always better than doing nothing."

"Point." Peter folded the map, a circled point facing up. "Cypress and Quimby. That's my best guess."

"We'll take it." Liv threw him a grateful smile. "See? Now we have a plan. Let's get moving."

Coveralls-guy turned out to be the town mechanic. Brian led them out to a vintage school bus, its ancient engines rumbling with cheerful immunity to the electromagnetic distortions. "We kept these around for show, like historical artifacts. I hated to see 'em just sitting there rusting, so I made sure they stayed in working order."

"Probably saved our lives," Liv told him as she waved everyone onto the bus.

For about a block it looked like they were in the clear, and then there was a scream from the back of the bus as a warped victim of the worldmerge emerged from where it—he—had been hiding. Charlie rushed back through the aisle and crouched low, lashing out with a vicious kick to the guy's knee that took him off balance; Peter seized the opportunity and hit high, knocking the unfortunate victim backward and out of the rear exit.

"Go!" Charlie shouted, and Brian stomped on the gas. The bus lurched forward, careening down the street. Charlie grinned up at Peter from his spot on the floor, still braced in the aisle between the seats and wisely not attempting to stand. "The old one-two never fails."

"Teamwork," Peter agreed, and could only hope that he wasn't leading his team—his friends—to their deaths.

They got luckier than they deserved: his half-crazed, half-instinctive supposition had real merit. The team and the surviving residents huddled together in the bike shop, cowering as the town tore itself apart.

When the air cleared, the destruction around them was complete. "Saved our asses," Charlie said, clapping Peter on the shoulder.

The Fringe Division clean-up crew swooped in, consoling the survivors and taking readings. "Definitely amphilicite residue," one of the techs reported.

Peter couldn't feel good about being right, considering the circumstances.

After the wrap-up was complete, Liv and Charlie conferred with the other side and learned that Olivia, Walter, and Astrid had been trapped in their version of Westfield and faced an almost-identical series of events. Lincoln, of course, had been out of town.

But nothing about what Jones had tried to do made any sense at all. Peter supposed that it might take a lunatic to catch a lunatic, but he wasn't equal to the task.

* * *

He wasn't given time to figure it out. Two days later, the entire team in conjunction with divisions called from farther out spent the afternoon fighting a motherfucking _bitch_ of a vortex. There were fewer these days, but those that appeared tended to be more intense. In situations like this, the Fringe response was more like being on a firefighting squad than anything else. No weird science to figure out, or at least none on the moment. They had their hands full evacuating as many civilians as possible and creating a safe perimeter for the Amber dispersal before the Looker monitoring the case called the final countdown. But there were heavy casualties before the Amber set, civilians and Fringe personnel alike.

When it was over, Peter eyed the quarantined area with loathing and thought, again, there had to be another way. He had access to the division labs and time on his hands; devoting himself to finding another solution would be a better use of his life than sitting around moping about lost possibilities.

The bar was hopping as usual after the reports were in, but despite a beer or two Peter found himself wound up and restless. Twitchy. The kind of mood that in his younger days meant he was headed for some kind of trouble, probably of his own making.

He felt a touch on his shoulder. "Peter Bishop."

It was a statement, not a question. He turned to see a tall, dark-haired woman in military fatigues and a major's insignia, vaguely familiar. She put out a hand to shake and he took it. "Angela Warner. We've met, in passing."

In this timeline, he'd seen her coordinating with Colonel Broyles as Secretary Bishop's assistant. He'd seen her briefly in the other, too, ushering Liv into the Secretary's office. "Sure. I don't remember seeing you at one of these things before, though."

"I usually don't hang around long." She met his eyes, her tone direct and unmistakable. "Want to get out of here?"

And fuck it, it'd been a terrible day and she looked nothing like Olivia. "Yeah, I really would."

It was a fast, silent drive to her apartment, which ended up being as neat, clean, and efficient as she appeared. Angela didn't waste any time. "I hope you don't mind," she said, holding up a pair of handcuffs.

Peter shrugged, acquiescing. It would be a relief to be in someone else's hands, no decisions required, although he knew he should've been a lot more cautious with someone he didn't know. But Angela was a Fringe agent and the office gossip would've warned him away if she had bodies in the closet, literal or otherwise.

She paused. "Safe word?"

"Gene," Peter said without thinking about it, and laughed. Angela eyed him, but didn't seem inclined to ask. She didn't seem inclined to ask him anything, which was fine by him.

She wasn't gentle. Peter didn't want her to be.

* * *

No one mocked or teased anyone else about the previous day's liaisons. For employees of a division that ran on gossip as much as adrenaline, people were generally discreet—or at least remarkably nonjudgmental about each others' methods of relief.

But during the long debrief on the vortex the next day, Lincoln glanced over at Peter and, seemingly absently, rubbed at his wrist. It was all Peter could do to keep a straight face for the rest of the meeting.

* * *

"Hey, Peter. Frank's finally back in town and Mona's been bugging me—" Charlie paused. "Bad choice of words. She's been wanting to go out with the team awhile now, you're welcome to come along."

Peter raised an eyebrow. "So...you and Mona, Liv and Frank, and Lincoln and me?"

Charlie grinned at him. "Not a setup, if that was even possible. You wanna bring someone else along, let me know."

It was a polite face-saving offer, but unnecessary and they both knew it. "Nah, it's fine."

"It's a nice place. Dress up."

Mona was young and perky and not at all what Peter would have pegged as Charlie's type. Her black dress and fingernails made Peter think of a goth teenager, her humor and choice of obsession tending to the macabre. She clearly adored Charlie, but something about Charlie's responses to her indicated an unspoken tension.

Frank Stanton, on the other hand, was as solid as they came. He worked in a parallel occupation to Fringe Division, fighting epidemics instead of vortexes, but he understood their lives and he and Liv seem to have worked out a balance with his long absences. He seemed like a good guy—maybe too good, in a slightly bland sort of way—and also, obviously, completely in love with Olivia Dunham.

Charlie said "dress up" and they all had, perhaps relishing the opportunity to look like civilized humans for once. Liv was in a green dress, gorgeous against her hair, and Peter remembered the other Charlie dressing in a suit for work, so his spruced-up appearance wasn't a surprise.

But Lincoln was a dead ringer for his alternate, clean-shaven in a suit with his hair tamed down, lacking only the glasses. He gave Peter a serious case of double vision, and not an entirely pleasant kind.

His appearance proved to be the inadvertent trigger for a deep, dark mood, the kind that set all of Peter's nastiest thoughts and most sarcastic impulses on high. But he was surrounded by people he had no reason to vent at. Peter made it through the main course mostly by smiling tightly and keeping his mouth shut otherwise.

As soon as the dishes were cleared he excused himself, heading in a beeline toward the bathroom. He splashed cold water on his face, trying to shock himself back into civility.

The door swung open, revealing the current source of his agitation. "Hey, just wanted to see if you were—"

Peter turned and before he knew it, he had Lincoln up against a wall again. Maybe he really was getting used to this world, because here he didn't think twice about kissing another man in a restaurant bathroom. He vaguely heard someone come in, chuckle, and go about his business without a word.

Lincoln groaned against his tongue and the sound went right to Peter's dick, but no matter how comfortable he was becoming with his new home, he still had some standards. Or at least enough manners not to leave the rest of the party waiting. He pulled back reluctantly, and they both stood still for a moment, getting their breath back.

"I'd say we have to stop meeting like this...but you know I don't mind." Lincoln smirked at him, and then the look shaded into something more concerned. "You okay?"

"No. I think I'm pretty fucked up."

"In good company, then." Lincoln patted his arm. "Everybody's kind of nuts, if you haven't noticed. Charlie likes being married but he doesn't stay married; Mona's wife number four. I give it a few more weeks at best. Liv—shit, I don't know. Olivia just copes."

Peter let out a short laugh because yeah, that sounded familiar. "And you?"

Lincoln shrugged. "Thought my method was pretty obvious. But you know, Peter, there are people you can talk to, the division shrinks have pretty much heard it all." He paused. "Okay, granted, you've got a special kind of fucked-upedness going on, but you should consider it anyway."

"Thanks," Peter said dryly. It'd be easy to be angry, to take Lincoln's casualness for callousness. But the concern underneath was evident, and his advice was sound.

Lincoln nodded toward the bathroom door, smiling. "C'mon. They do this giant flaming dessert thing and I don't want to miss that."

It was impossible to resist the impulse: Peter reached out and ran his hand through Lincoln's hair, making the ends stand up. Lincoln held still for it, patiently eyeing him. "Sorry. You looked too much like your double."

"Anything but that," Lincoln said in mock horror, and vigorously scrubbed his own hands through his hair. "Better?"

"Much," Peter agreed, and they went back out to watch the waiters try to set the restaurant on fire.

* * *

After that Peter found himself watching Lincoln a lot.

He saw nothing that he hadn't noticed before, but now he had more context. Like watching as Charlie put a casual hand on the back of Lincoln's neck, and seeing Lincoln's eyelids flutter as he took a quick, controlled breath. Peter carefully stifled a grin, filing the reaction away for...future reference. If he ever got his shit sorted out enough to exploit the insight.

Peter had taken Lincoln's suggestion seriously, but ultimately knew it'd be pointless; he'd never been comfortable submitting himself to authority, and after seeing the wreckage of Walter's mind in two timelines, he wasn't eager to put himself in the hands of a headshrinker. (A gross condemnation of the psychiatric profession, he knew, and Walter's problems were mostly of his own making. But even so.)

Why it'd been easier to have meaningless, slightly angry sex with a stranger than with someone he actually liked...honestly wasn't much of a puzzle. That was part of the vibe of this world, in living for the moment. It was easy to be carried along.

Peter also didn't need a shrink to tell him he was avoiding the risk of becoming emotionally attached to this world, too fast, too soon.

And Lincoln...Lincoln was appealing on all kinds of levels. Part of it was that damnable mirroring of his alternate, reminding Peter of the lost opportunities there, too. But this Lincoln laughed more often, was far less guarded, at least on the surface.

He hadn't read Lincoln's file. Peter could have hacked the database, but he refrained. Division gossip and observation told him enough. Lincoln had been at the top of his class, a prodigy, young for the position he held. A little like himself, Peter thought with amusement, if he'd ever cared to try that hard.

Still—to put everything in perspective—he wasn't pining over Lincoln, either. He liked the guy a lot. Enjoyed hanging out with him, on duty or off. Would be happy to see him naked again once Peter was more sure of his moods and reactions.

He had to start truly living in this world. Angela had been one step. Maybe Lincoln could be another.

But if he was going use his friend as a stepping stone, he needed to be sure of his footing. Both of them deserved at least that.

* * *

Two months into Peter's relocation to this universe, Frank finally got enough leave for a brief honeymoon.

Liv's wedding had been on hold until the right moment; once the word was given, things happened fast. The affair was meant to be informal, put together on the fly. They'd found an outdoor space willing to rent for weddings (with all waivers of liability signed and in place). One of Frank's army buddies stood up with him, and Liv forewent bridesmaids altogether in favor of having Charlie stand with her.

Charlie showed up without Mona, proving the accuracy of Lincoln's prediction. He seemed more resigned than sad as he told Peter, "We didn't have anything left to talk about. Not sure we ever did, outside the bugs."

The wedding was gorgeous and efficiently brief, the better to get to the festivities afterward. Most of Fringe Division turned out, mixing easily among Frank's CDC colleagues. They all fought against aspects of the same enemy.

Peter tried to keep an eye on Lincoln, but that proved more difficult imagined than done. Lincoln kept disappearing into the crowd, a smile on his face and a drink in hand, never pausing to talk to anyone for more than a moment. Peter did see him stop to talk to Liv and Frank: leaning in to kiss Liv's cheek, shaking Frank's hand, making them both laugh with (he'd guess) some irreverent quip about their honeymoon. But Lincoln's face as he turned away was a careful study in blank pleasantness, nothing like his natural smile.

Lincoln caught his eye and vanished again. Well, fine; Lincoln knew where he was if he wanted to talk. Peter supposed he wouldn't be in the mood for a heart-to-heart, either.

He wasn't the only one looking out. Charlie caught up with him, more than a couple of drinks in but still steady on his feet. "Y'talked to Linc?"

"No," Peter said, with more irritation than he intended, "and I'm not going to chase him down, either."

Charlie shook his head, ignoring Peter's cranky reply in pursuit of the matter at hand. "He won't lemme talk to him. See if you have better luck."

"I'm not his—" Peter started, standing on admittedly shaky principle, but faltered at the look on Charlie's face.

"Team looks after each other," Charlie insisted with the intensity of the more-than-slightly inebriated.

Couldn't really argue that point, and Peter didn't want to. So to that point he shepherded Charlie through his farewells and into a cab; checked in on Astrid, who was dancing up a storm on the green and oblivious to (or pointedly ignoring) the stares from the colleagues who thought of her strictly as a computer interface; and finally caught up with Lincoln.

To Peter's relief, Lincoln hadn't drunk himself into a stupor and wasn't, in fact, sulking in any discernible way. He sighed audibly as Peter approached. "I'm happy for her. I really am. No one believes me when I say that."

"I believe you," Peter said softly. "Doesn't stop the rest of you from hurting, though."

"I guess you'd know," Lincoln shot back, and then glanced up as if he'd realized what he'd said. "Peter—"

Peter shook his head, waving the barb off. "Free pass." He moved closer, not intending to go for another stolen kiss, but Lincoln misread his intent.

" _Not today,_ " Lincoln hissed, his eyes full of sudden hurt, and turned away.

* * *

Liv's time off for her honeymoon dovetailed neatly with a brief lull in Fringe events, at least those of the more dramatic kind. The search for Jones and his associates was still turning up dry in both universes and everyone seemed on edge, waiting for the next crisis to appear.

Peter used the lull to look into the vortex research, though he'd been kidding himself if he'd thought he might have some innovative solution to offer. Part of him felt perversely proud that he'd helped establish the bridge that was healing this world, but the machine was still an anomalous mystery and no one wanted him to mess with it in case his DNA activated some new cycle or a shutdown.

The lull ended, inevitably, with an escalation of events: a bizarre case about a group of hive-mind teenaged assassins, followed immediately by an urgent call from the other side's Fringe Division. Jones had been busy over there during the previous day or so—he'd kidnapped Olivia and tortured her, trying to activate her theoretical Cortexiphan abilities. Olivia escaped (of course she escaped, Peter thought wryly) but so did Jones, creating a portal back to this universe. Fringe Division immediately started another intensive search for Jones and his newly revealed accomplice, this world's Nina Sharp.

The two teams met in the bridge room for the debrief. Peter went along, deciding it was finally time to confront his old life face to face.

Seeing Olivia was both harder and easier than he'd expected. Harder because she was so much like the Olivia he remembered...maybe more, now, that he'd allowed time to blur the lines between them. And because she seemed happier than he remembered, for at least one obvious reason: Olivia and Lincoln clearly had taken the next step, evident in the way his eyes followed her, the way she smiled back at him.

That, ironically, made seeing her easier. Knowing she was at peace, unburdened by the terrors of her past. The way, maybe, she'd always been meant to be. The fact that she'd arrived at that state without him felt like the universe's way of simultaneously confirming the truth of his paradoxical existence and giving him the finger.

The universe could go fuck itself. Peter would choose to be content with life he was building.

Lincoln seemed to be having similar thoughts. "At least in one universe," he murmured, his eyes following his doppelganger's and Liv's. But he sounded more thoughtful than distressed, and Peter thought that was a good sign. For both of them.

None of them were much in the mood for polite chit-chat by the time the official business concluded. Olivia still seemed tired from her ordeal, and Peter wanted to try a few new angles on finding Jones now that his connection to Sharp had been revealed.

Olivia did spare him a weary smile, and a kind word. "It looks like like you've found a home over there."

It was half a question and laden with gentle concern, but—

Peter recognized that brand of concern. He'd seen it on her face often enough, directed at the victims of Fringe events, the people caught up in unbelievable circumstances. To her, he was just another victim and that...

...that, more than anything, drove home how far removed from this Olivia he was.

"I have," he told her, determined to leave it at that. Despite everything, it felt good working with her again. And seeing her happy really did feel like sanction for him to move on.

* * *

"You've been through a number of cases and conducted yourself admirably. It's my pleasure to welcome you as a full member of the team. Your security clearance level has been raised appropriately. Welcome aboard, Agent Bishop." Colonel Broyles held out his hand and Peter shook with him. He was more than a little shocked when Broyles' stern façade broke into a broad smile and he pulled Peter into a brief embrace. "Try not to die," he said into Peter's ear.

"Yessir," Peter managed, and Broyles let him go.

"As you were."

Despite Broyles' not-so-subtle suggestion the rest of the team gathered around, congratulating him. Liv kissed his cheek, and Charlie shook his hand; even Astrid stepped away from her station to offer a solemn little bow.

It would've been the perfect opportunity for Lincoln to legitimately steal back a kiss but he kept his seat on his desk, smiling smugly from his perch.

"You don't have to, but it's kind of a tradition." Liv waved something that looks like a pen in his direction, but Peter knew it couldn't be; he'd had to go to an antique shop to find honest writing utensils and a couple reams of paper, wanting to keep a handwritten record of his life here. Writing everything down made it seem more real than typing onto a datapad. "Most of us have a Fringe Division tattoo."

"And who am I to buck tradition," Peter said, recognizing a team-bonding obligation and resigning himself to his fate. "Any, uh, particular place?"

Charlie held up a warning finger to Lincoln before he could reply. "Wherever you're comfortable."

Peter nodded and stripped off his shirt, rolling up the sleeve of his undershirt on his left arm. "Go on, then." He closed his eyes against the expected sting as Liv ran the device over his upper arm, but he felt nothing aside from a faint pressure. When he opened his eyes, the black logo stood out against his skin. He ran a finger over the design, not feeling any difference in texture. "Nice gadget."

"It's removable, too, just as easy," Liv said, and winked at him. "Fun to play with, with a partner."

"And contrary to popular opinion," Lincoln put in, "mine is _not_ on my ass."

Charlie looked over at him, mingled affection and mockery on his face. "Lincoln, _everyone_ knows where your tatts are."

Including Peter, but keeping silent on the matter was definitely the better part of discretion at the moment. Lincoln pouted briefly, then conceded the point with a shrug and a nod. He clearly had a follow-up comment on the tip of his tongue, but a meaningful throat-clearing sound from the direction of Broyles' office urged them all to simply grin at each other and get back to work.

* * *

Lincoln had been shooting surreptitious looks at him all day, so by the time he finally got around to broaching the subject, Peter had more-or-less guessed at the topic.

The method of delivery surprised him though, emerging from the half-challenging, half-tentative expression on Lincoln's face. In the middle of the workday, at that. "I don't know what we've been doing, but I'm changing the rules. Go out with me? One real date."

"Sure," Peter said, amused, and Lincoln grinned.

"Awesome. Witness!" he called, raising his voice. "Peter just agreed to go out with me."

"Witnessed," Charlie called back, and across the room, Astrid echoed him.

Peter blinked at him. "What the hell was that?"

Lincoln waved a hand. "Nothing serious. Just kind of a signal so people will stop ambushing me in hallways until I tell 'em otherwise."

Peter raised an eyebrow. "That's...a big commitment. Considering I only agreed to one date."

"Not like we're engaged, or anything. No obligation."

A Fringe event intervened before they actually managed to arrange their date. Not a vortex this time, but a sick fuck of a serial killer who used pheromones to lure his victims. The case involved more investigation than action, and despite the disturbing nature of the job Peter enjoyed working with the team, liking how they came together: the way Lincoln's decisive leadership, Charlie's cool head, Liv's intuition, and his own leap of illogic combined to find the perp.

Charlie was still shaking his head over that. "Maybe we should be worried about how easily Peter got into that freak's head."

"Nah," Lincoln said. "That's a useful talent. And who better than us keep an eye on him?"

The "witnessing" ritual seemed to be doing its work as they gathered for the usual after-case party. People were swarming around Lincoln as usual, talking to him and putting their hands on his shoulders or reaching for a hug for reassurance against the insane realities of their world, but as far as Peter could tell, no one was groping him or trying to lure him home.

Charlie joined him at the team's customary table. Since the breakup with Mona, Charlie had reverted to his old bachelor habits: He could drink just about anyone under the table, although it never seemed to impact his working hours. He was being moderate tonight, though, a couple of beers in and lazily scanning the crowd.

He snorted, pointing toward Lincoln's admirers with his chin. "Look at him, soaking it up. One day his ego's going to explode and take all the rest of us down with it."

Just like the other day, Charlie's mockery was laced with unmistakable affection. "You love him."

"'Course I do. Just not in the way he wants." Charlie turned toward Peter, looking genuinely regretful. "It's a different world than the one I grew up in, everyone's supposed to be 'flexible' now. I just can't bend that far." He paused and added, "I'm glad you do."

Peter eyed Charlie over the rim of his bottle. "I feel like I just got permission to take Lincoln to prom."

Charlie guffawed, his laughter rolling out into the rest of the bar and making people smile at the sound. "Well, thanks. Nowhere near that old. Or that responsible."

Peter grinned back at him. "Then I won't promise to have him home by midnight."

"Christ, I'd hope not." Charlie finished his beer and put the bottle down with a thud. "Speaking of late nights and so forth. Don't wait up." He got up and crossed the room to a pretty young agent Peter had seen around the building. Tech services, maybe. The woman smiled at Charlie, listened as he bent down to whisper in her ear, and took his arm with a laugh. Peter watched them go, smiling.

Lincoln swung into the chair opposite him. "Whew. Okay, barring sudden outbreaks of disaster—pick you up at eleven on Saturday for our date?"

"Gonna wine and dine me?"

"Nah. Better. Dress casual."

* * *

Lincoln took him to a ballpark in the Bronx, where they watched Charlie coach the last game of his Little League team's sadly losing season. Peter had to admit it was a much better start to the date than some stuffy restaurant. Lincoln on a casual date, he also noted with amusement, dressed exactly the same as Lincoln at work minus the fuck-me thigh holster. Its absence was a little bit of a shame, but not appropriate for the venue.

They found seats on the bleachers and Lincoln went to find provisions. On his return he presented the mystery meat park 'dogs and watery beer with smug satisfaction. Peter laughed at the offerings, obliquely pleased by their essential lack of elegance. "You're lucky I'm a cheap date."

"That's what I like about you." Lincoln took a bite and amended, "One of the things."

The game was embarrassing for all involved, but Charlie remained endlessly encouraging despite the kids' complete ineptitude. "He's great with them," Peter commented.

"Yeah. You should see his family, all his brothers and sisters and a zillion kids running around." Lincoln looked briefly pensive. "I know he still really wants kids of his own. He'd be an amazing dad."

"How about you?"

Lincoln glanced at him, startled. "Kids? Never thought about them much. Never figured I'd be around long enough."

That had been Olivia's argument in his future vision, all those years watching their world slowly disintegrate. Peter waved at the park around them. "Things are getting better now."

"Also never thought about settling down. Well, not usually." Lincoln's tone had turned sardonic and Peter understood exactly. Both of them had been definitively caught off guard and thrown off balance by Olivia Dunham. Before he met her, Peter never could have imagined settling down either.

The game ended in a bloodless massacre. All the parents were thanking Charlie for keeping their kids engaged despite their losses, including a blonde woman who seemed vaguely familiar. Peter blinked at her, puzzled, before the recollection fell into place: he'd seen her once, or more accurately her other-universe double, dressed in black at a funeral. But in this universe she was wearing a bright sundress and laughing, leaning in to talk to Charlie, and he was grinning right back. Peter told himself to wrestle with the apparent inevitability of fate later, and just be delighted that Charlie had finally met his Sonia.

"What are you smiling about?" Lincoln asked to the look on his face.

Peter shook his head. "Nothing. It's— What's the last serious relationship you were in?" he asked, the question artless and unplanned. But it felt important to get a sense of Lincoln's life, aside from all the division gossip. He realized how little he knew, and Lincoln had a distinct lead between his childhood memories and the personnel file.

"Why? You fishing for the trophy?" Lincoln joked, but Peter could hear the tension in his voice.

"Just want to know."

"Guess you can figure it's been a while. Since— well, a couple of years."

Since he first laid eyes on Liv was a good bet, at the very least. But now Peter was curious enough to poke at the question. "A lot of people like you, Lincoln. A lot of people wish you'd give them a chance past the occasional post-mission fuck."

Lincoln's eyes narrowed. "What the hell, Peter."

"Maybe you've forgotten," Peter said, softly and deliberately. "You declared this a real date. Witnessed and everything. You've read my file, but I haven't read yours. So I'm trying to—"

"Yeah," Lincoln cut him off. "I get it. I— shit. Okay, let's walk. Can't sit still for this."

In fits and starts along their arbitrary route Lincoln told him about Amita Patil, who he'd met a couple of years ago during a seminar. A physicist working on the science of the vortexes, she'd been trying to discern their origin and patterns. Not knowing about the alternate universe, Lincoln said glumly, made the whole exercise a wash. But they hadn't known that at the time.

They got close, nearly got engaged, before Lincoln had a near miss at work and Amita realized she just couldn't cope with Lincoln risking his life on a daily basis.

"And _that,_ " Lincoln said, his voice heavy, "is why I don't date outside of division anymore. Even casually. Charlie keeps trying with civilians, but it never works out. Frank gets it, but Frank risks his life on the job like we do—you know why he's built like a brick craphouse? He's his team's soldier as well as a doctor, out in the field. Half the time they're fighting off angry or panicked people alongside the disease of the week."

He paused, biting at the inside of his cheek. "...and if you really want to know about the other big romantic tragedy of my life, I'd have to tell you about Nick. But I'm not up to that today."

"I do want to know, when you're ready," Peter said, and it was more true than he could have anticipated. "Thanks for telling me about Amita."

Lincoln shrugged, the movement striving for casual and failing utterly. "You asked. It's not a secret, you know I can't keep a secret. You could've asked Charlie or Liv, for that matter."

"It's better hearing it from you."

Lincoln nodded, giving Peter a sidelong glance. "All's fair, then—tell me about your Olivia?"

It could have been revenge for pressing Lincoln about his past, but Lincoln's expression held only curiosity, and familiar sympathy.

Peter took a long breath. "You've worked with her, so you know how intense she is, how focused. How much she cares."

Lincoln nodded but didn't comment, perhaps holding his tongue on the inevitable comparisons to Liv. The distinctions were evident to anyone who'd met them both.

He told Lincoln about how he'd been drafted into Fringe Division—with the caveat, of course, that no one on the other side remembered it this way. About how in the beginning he'd wanted nothing more than to escape back to his wandering life, and how he'd been drawn in by the pattern of inexplicable events that somehow, maddeningly, yielded some identifiable cause in the end. Maybe not a rational or provable cause, but the team usually found an answer to the situation, if not a satisfying one. And about how Olivia stayed on target through it all, never letting the weirdness keep her from the business of protecting the innocent.

Peter was describing the transforming porcupine-man (he learned later that in a startling example of interdimensional symmetry, the other side was newly experiencing that event at about the same time) when he realized that after about an hour's walk, they were in the vicinity of Yankee Stadium. Except it was the _old_ stadium, the one that had been demolished in 2010 on the other side. "—hey, can we take a look? They're still the Yankees here, right?"

Lincoln threw him an amused look. "Yeah, they are. And sure."

It turned out that over here, the powers that be had decided to refurbish the old stadium rather than tear it down and rebuild. Peter walked out onto the field, inordinately delighted by the idea that The House That Ruth Built was still standing.

"Didn't know you cared so much about baseball," Lincoln commented when Peter finally felt ready to move on.

"I don't, really. It's..." he paused, trying to frame his thoughts. "A symbol. Something unique, over here. Something good."

"Like the Twin Towers," Lincoln said, with appropriate seriousness. "Things happened differently than the history you knew, sometimes for the better."

"Yeah." They stopped for a soda, then continued meandering southward. Peter glanced over at Lincoln. "Did you have a destination in mind?"

Lincoln waved his arm, encompassing the city. "Nope. Just this, playing tourist. I figured you hadn't had much chance yet. Anywhere you want to see?"

"Exploring is good." Peter had already been on a few airship rides for official and unofficial purposes, and he'd gone by the Grand Hotel on his own time. "Gaudy" was about right.

"Okay, then," Lincoln said, "tell me more about this porcupine guy. Transgenic virus, right?"

Peter thought back, but mostly all he could recall was Walter talking about nipples. Far too much discussion of nipples. "From what I remember, yeah. Rewrote the guy's DNA and—no, I don't know the specifics," he said in response to Lincoln's full-on nerd face.

Lincoln sighed. "No one ever remembers the good stuff," he complained with a self-mocking grin.

"Sorry. Anyway, the most entertaining part of that case was me and Olivia pretending to be a couple of weapons' dealers, to intercept the virus sale." Peter smiled despite the harrowing memory. "Good times."

Lincoln had been watching him closely. "Is that when you fell in love with her?"

Peter laughed, surprised that he was able to laugh about it. "It was too late for me by that point. Even if I didn't know it yet."

"Hear that. Hey, you wanna catch the subway, take a ride to Springsteen Station? You can get your moon visa in case you ever want to go up there."

Peter blinked at him in confusion, then realized he was laughing again. "Oh, my God. I completely forgot you've got moon bases. Yes! Have you been up there?"

Lincoln shook his head as they headed toward the subway station. "Not yet. But I figured you might want to get your clearance in case you want to go. Your Fringe badge would do the trick too," he added, "but it's better not to freak the civilians for a personal trip."

"The moon," Peter said, with honest amazement, and spent the next hour in transit grilling Lincoln about the history of the colonies and the scientific advances that had allowed them to be established in the first place.

Springsteen Station wasn't just a transit stop; part of what Peter had known as Newark Penn had been turned into an exhibit on the moon bases. Peter read over every display while waiting for his visa to be processed. "There's a ton of documentation on the project," Lincoln added, "video diaries and engineering schematics and pretty much every step from the first permanent lunar module through plans for the next couple of years. They're talking about DisneyLand Luna, if you can believe that."

"Amazing. Okay, I am impressed, if that was your intention."

Lincoln grinned at him. "Date ain't over yet."

Peter was definitely looking forward to the rest.

After he'd exhausted his interest (and probably Lincoln's patience) with the moon stuff, they headed back into the city. Both of them agreed they were starving, so Lincoln led them to a tiny hole in the wall restaurant where no one spoke English. Lincoln took the initiative, rattling off an order in Cantonese while Peter listened, amused. When the server left, he glanced across the table with a smirk. "Good choices. I especially like the fung zao."

Lincoln leaned back in his seat and smiled. "Thought you might."

The meal arrived in bits and pieces as their food was made to order, and it turned out to be some of the best dim sum Peter ever tasted. Neither of them over-indulged—Peter, at least, was thinking about what he was increasingly hoping might happen later—but they fought a valiant battle over the last piece of siu mai, wielding chicken feet as weapons until the proprietor's wife came over to scold them both.

"They'll never let me in here again," Lincoln said mournfully, settling the bill with a hefty gratuity on top. The glee with which the owner took his money made the statement a lie.

"Really good day," Peter said once they were outside, slinging his arm around Lincoln's shoulders in a casual hug. "You're a decent date."

"'Decent,' wow, there's a rousing endorsement." Lincoln looked at him sideways. "You wanna come over and see my etchings, or some other euphemism, or should I escort you home?"

"I like art," Peter said softly, and gave Lincoln's shoulder a squeeze before dropping his arm.

The trip over was quiet. This was the first time Peter had been to Lincoln's apartment since their first disastrous non-date, and the associations were a little uncomfortable.

"You, uh, want a beer?" Lincoln said almost hesitantly as soon as they got inside. It was a fair attempt to stave off any awkwardness, to let Peter know that he was keeping his expectations in check.

Peter wasn't interested in the beer, or the restraint. "I want to see your etchings. Or some other euphemism."

This time he was the one who got pushed against a wall. Peter had an edge in size, but Lincoln had military training and Peter wasn't resisting. Lincoln smirked at him. "So you were lying, then. About not kissing on the first date."

"Way past that at this point, don't you—"

That seemed to be enough permission for Lincoln. He grabbed Peter's collar and hauled him in, controlling the kiss, fast and assertive, and Peter let himself be led.

"You're good to go this time, right?" Lincoln murmured. "'Cause I'll back off if you're not, but otherwise, Peter, I seriously want to get in your pants."

Peter's sentiments were exactly the same, but he wanted to make sure they were on the same page first. "Hey." He caught Lincoln's chin, turned it to catch his eyes. "I'm not fishing for that trophy."

Lincoln stared at him for a moment, then cracked up, collapsing against Peter's chest. "Yeaaaah, no kidding. It'd never work. We're just—" he took a deep breath, his face still buried in Peter's shirt. "We're just gonna try to fuck the Olivias out of each other. To be perfectly crude about it."

The proposition was perfectly crude, and completely appalling, and—

— and breathtakingly accurate. Peter could protest, stand (rightly) on the claim that his feelings for Olivia ran far too deep to be wiped away by casual sex, and by the way, how the hell did Lincoln think his one-sided crush could compare to the love Peter and Olivia had shared? He could see himself pulling away, balling his fist, getting in a first good punch before Lincoln came back with a precise strike—

The thought just made him tired.

Olivia was gone. She was living her life without him, over on the other side, with a man who made her happy; Peter couldn't bring himself to be angry or resentful about that. He had memories of a lifetime spent with her, valid despite the fact that no one else shared them.

He had a new life here, friends to share it with. And even if Lincoln wasn't offering true love, his proposal sprang from affection and care and honesty, and Peter had done with far less for most of his life.

And this would be a great way to get over the final...hump. Go out with a bang.

He started to laugh, a chuckle at first and then it became a full-on giggle, laced with hysteria. Lincoln pulled back to look at him, alarmed, before his expression softened in understanding. "Laugh or go nuts, right? Been there." He waited until Peter's breath stopped hitching. "This'll be good for both of us, Peter. I swear."

"I know." He let his eyes trail down Lincoln's body, remembering what lay underneath the t-shirt and cargo pants and suddenly aching to touch. "Let's get naked already."

"Favorite words _ever,_ " Lincoln said, and turned toward the bedroom, already pulling at his clothes.

Peter laughed and followed him.

* * *

He woke to the smell of coffee.

Peter flailed, terribly disoriented, until he recognized he was still in Lincoln's room—unmistakable between the action figures and the science posters. Under other circumstances he might have stayed in bed, maybe called for Lincoln to come back and help him wake up properly.

But the coffee was an anomaly that needed to be investigated.

He grabbed sweatpants (Lincoln's) and a t-shirt (his) and washed up quickly in the hall bathroom. By the time he got to the kitchen, the smell was nearly overwhelming. "Explain that."

"Morning to you too." Lincoln was staring intently at a battered, ancient coffeepot. "Astrid got a can from her counterpart, she gave me a couple of scoops. She said it was a congratulatory gift for landing a date with you. I think this is done?"

Peter snickered, walking over to the counter and shouldering Lincoln out of the way. "Better let a professional handle this."

Lincoln handed him two mugs without comment. The coffee was over brewed, but Peter didn't care. He held the cup under his nose and moaned.

Lincoln frowned at his cup after taking a sip. "That's what all the fuss is about? Smells better than it tastes."

"Add a pinch of salt." Peter doctored his coffee, not wanting a drop to go to waste. "Thanks for sharing."

"What better occasion." Lincoln grinned at him. "Goes without saying it was fun, right?"

Peter snorted. "You made that abundantly clear. Pretty sure your neighbors heard you, too."

"Eh, they're used to it."

Peter smiled into his coffee. They drank in companionable silence until Lincoln glanced at him and said, "There's a Secret Science Club meeting tonight. You wanna go? Dr. Niehaus is talking about recombinant DNA and blight-resistant crops."

"Secret Science—of course that's a thing. Sure, sounds good. Text me details and I'll meet you there? Elizabeth wanted me to come by later and fix her washing machine."

"Brain the size of a planet and they've got you playing handyman," Lincoln said, mocking.

"It's a living. Hey—we're good?"

Lincoln smirked. "We're _awesome._ "

Peter grinned at his friend and went to find his pants.

He probably wouldn't be back here for a while under the same circumstances—"one date" meant just that. But one step at a time, he was making a home on his own terms. He'd survived the universe's best effort to erase him. Living fully in this world was the best revenge.


	3. Notes

_And when there's nowhere else to run_

 _Is there room for one more son_

 _These changes ain't changing me_

 _The cold-hearted boy I used to be_

— "All These Things That I've Done," the Killers

My sincere thanks to you for requesting this pairing! I've been wanting to write this fic for a long, long time.

This fic grew out of an old drabble that wouldn't leave me alone: [link on AO3]

My self-mocking meta-commentary on this fic as it was in progress: _fic should involve Lincoln getting over Liv as much as Peter getting past Olivia. Couldn't just write porn, oh no_..and then I didn't write the porn, either. Mutter, mumble. Anyone wanna write an outtake? :p

Peter and Lincoln background sparked from a post on tumblr, postulating that they knew each other as kids [link on AO3]

Due to the above I used the s3 background, where Lincoln's father was a jurist who knew Walternate rather than a store owner. My headcanon says his mother's alive and living, at her son's suggestion, away from the Eastern seaboard that seems to be a focal point for Fringe events.

re Westfield: I always liked the idea that Olivia's momentary lapse was because Liv was on the other side, and Olivia's Cortexiphan abilities (whether active or latent) kept them from being drawn together.

The idea of Charlie being married multiple times became my headcanon after reading Elfin's "Not the Skin that Contains Me."

The best dim sum I've ever had: Yank Sing in San Francisco (cart service, but everything fresh) and Dim Sum Go Go in Manhattan (made to order). Try them if you're there.

Amita: Totally made up, natch. Amusing only to me: I had another name there, but then I saw the trailer for Seth Gabel's movie _Allegiance_ , in which his character kisses Reshma Shetty. And Gabel in military uniform is pretty much alt-Linc's history, so... (Amusing, like I said, only to me.)

Of course the Secret Science Club exists: [link on AO3]

This fic ends before the timeline catches up to "Everything in its Right Place," but I think we can all safely assume that Peter's presence is the variable that saves Captain Lee from an unjust fate. (It'd be nice if he prevented Colonel Broyles from making a dreadful error, too.) That's the unwritten story and I'm sticking to it.


End file.
